June 6, 2009

Easy Chocolate Nemesis revisited

Yesterday we were invited to our friends' new holiday house at Cowes for lunch. It was my turn to take dessert, and as it was my lovely friend Pauline's birthday last week I thought I'd take some sort of cake. I decided on River Cafe's Easy Chocolate Nemesisagain. Since making it then I've bought the book that features it - River Cafe Pocket Books: Puddings, Cakes and Icecreams, so here's the dead easy recipe in its original form...

Easy Chocolate Nemesis

340g 70% chocolate, broken into pieces

225g unsalted butter

5 eggs

210g caster sugar divided into 2 lots (70g + 120g)

Preheat oven to 120C. Butter a 25cm round cake tin (not springform) and line the bottom with a circle of buttered baking paper.

Melt the chocolate with the butter in a bowl set over simmering water. Do not let the water touch the bowl. While it's melting, heat 120g of the sugar with 100ml of water in a small pan and let it boil for a minute or so until it forms a light syrup. Pour the hot syrup into the melted chocolate and cool slightly.

While it's cooling beat the eggs with the remaining 70g of sugar until quadrupled in volume. Add the chocolate to the eggs and beat slowly until combined. Pour into the prepared tin. Put a folded teatowel in the bottom of a deep baking tray and enough hot water to come 3/4 of the way up the tin. Bake for 50 minutes* or until set. Leave the cake to cool in the water before refrigerating.

Bring to room temperature before serving. I sprinkled the cake with rose flavoured Persian fairy floss and a few rose petals, and served with a dollop of thick cream, to which I'd added a few drops of rose water. To serve, slice with a hot knife wiped clean between each cut.

* I don't have a 25 cm tin or a baking dish big enough to hold one, so I used a 23cm one. My new oven is so much quicker than any I've ever used so the smaller cake took the same time as the bigger one in the recipe despite being deeper. Another oven may take a bit longer...note that the recipe I referred to in the original post says bake a 23cm cake for an hour and a half.

Thank you so much! I made the cake from the original recipe. At least I tried. The taste was beyond heaven but the texture was completely wrong. You give the clue: let it cool down in the water. Aha! I'll try again this weekend

I made this cake, it was woderful, but baking it in 120c wasn't enough - it was wobbly and the part that was in the water didn't set. I baked it for 30 more minutes in higher heat (next time i'll start with 150 - the baine marie will keep it from overbaking)